Atlanta Hawks point guard Trae Young has always been more like Portland Trail Blazers frontman Damian Lillard than the Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry. We can talk about Young’s three-point game being closer to Lillard’s ability to hit clutch threes than it is to Curry’s volume approach, though he has proven capable of the occasional outburst.
Curry, arguably the greatest shooter ever, has averaged 11.2 triples per game over the last seven years only twice falling short of double-digit bombs averaging 9.8 threes both times.
Lillard has crossed the double-digit mark twice, each coming in the last two seasons. He was averaging 9.8 before going down with an abdominal injury that required surgery. But six of his 13 games with 10-plus threes this season came in the nine games before he went down.
The Blazers superstar averaged 7.4 threes per game in his first seven seasons in the NBA.
How can the Atlanta Hawks avoid the same shortcomings that have befallen the Blazers?
Young has once averaged even 9.5 threes in a season his second in the NBA when the Hawks went 20-47. Last year he shot 6.3 per contest, though, that number has risen to 7,2 this season which has turned into a series of historic evens for Young. There is one bit of history he doesn’t want to repeat and it is that of Lillard’s Blazers.
The notion comes from’s CBS Sports’ Brad Botkin’s article on the ‘NBA’s 10 most intriguing stretch storylines’.
In it, Botkin says the Hawks are simply “trying to avoid disaster”.
“We know the deal with the Hawks. They’re an elite offense and a terrible defense. They feel a lot like the Lillard-McCollum Blazers in that if they can just find a way to be average defensively, they’re dangerous.”
He goes on to explain why they don’t have to be this way. But this is a subject that won’t go away.
This season, Portland finally admitted the dynamic duo of Lillard and CJ McCollum had run its course and moved the latter (along with Larry Nance) to the New Orleans Pelicans for a package that included Josh Hart, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and a house swap.
In total, Lillard and McCollum played 515 games together and had a .561 win percentage.
That got them eight straight trips to the postseason but just three appearances beyond the first round and one Western Conference Finals berth which came three years ago. Portland won just 35 games the following season after putting up 53 leading up to their deep playoff run. Young had a quote after Saturday’s win about his own accomplishments that applies to the Blazers.
“…if we don’t win, none of this stuff matters and nobody cares about it, especially me.” – via Sarah K. Spencer/Atlanta Journal-Constitution
On top of the difference in how they use him, the Warriors took the opposite approach with Curry adding one of the greatest players in NBA history in Kevin Durant to an already historically-great roster that had already won a title. All that did was secure two more trophies.
Not that the Blazers had the option to add Durant or someone in his realm. But the idea of finding that kind of dynamic compliment has to be paramount with a player like Lillard.
Like Young, Lillard is a defensive liability and can be flustered by athletic length.
Similar to Lillard, Young has the ability to hit big-time, clutch threes even if the metrics are less than impressive on the surface. The former is hitting just 17.6 percent of his clutch threes this year with the latter connecting on just 18.8 percent. Even with that, there aren’t many you would rather have taking that kind of final shot ahead of Lillard or Young beyond Curry.
If the Hawks want to avoid the same pitfall that has the Blazers rebuilding around a now-31-year-old Lillard, they cannot make the same mistakes. They aren’t likely to have a KD-level talent available though they have been linked to Zion Williamson.
We have been staunchly against the move but it is one that makes sense in theory with Williamson’s ability to dominate efficiently when healthy.
That is a big caveat.
Most importantly, they have to figure out what to make of a defense that they rode into and through the postseason with several roster decisions looming this offseason. They’ve already traded away one member of their young core for a bench player plus draft compensation and made “everyone but Trey Young and Clint Capela” available for trade this season.
Fortunately, the Hawks have shown signs of that defense waking up over their last few games and still present a tough out in the postseason.
They just have to get there. And even then, what they do this offseason will go a long way in determining if Young’s career more closely resembles that of Curry or Lillard when all is said and done.
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March 01, 2022 at 03:43AM
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